[MD] David Granger and Ralph Waldo Emerson ?

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Matt Kundert <pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com>:

> Emerson is the first place I'd look if I were situating Pirsig in the 
> American canon of writers.  Pirsig's philosophical individualism is strongly 
> in the vein of what Emerson meant by "scholar."  It is why I think of Pirsig 
> as distinctively American above all else.

"Emerson remained throughout his lifetime the champion of the individual and a
believer in the primacy of the individual’s experience. In the individual can be
discovered all truths, all experience. For the individual, the religious experience
must be direct and unmediated by texts, traditions, or personality. Central to
defining Emerson’s contribution to American thought is his emphasis on non-
conformity that had so profound an effect on Thoreau. Self-reliance and independence
of thought are fundamental to Emerson’s perspective in that they are the practical
expressions of the central relation between the self and the infinite. To trust
oneself and follow our inner promptings corresponds to the highest degree of
consciousness."

--- Internet Encyclopedia of Philsophy 

http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/emerson.htm

Yes, Pirsig is distinctively American. 



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